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It is not clear how we should interpret Schweitzer's position. |
The reference to the ice crystal is especially puzzling, for an ice |
crystal is not alive at all. Putting this aside, however, the problem |
with the defences offered by both Schweitzer and Taylor for |
their ethical views is that they use language metaphorically and |
then argue as if what they had said was literally true. We may |
often talk about plants 'seeking' water or light so that they can |
survive, and this way of thinking about plants makes it easier |
to accept talk of their 'will to live', or of them 'pursuing' their |
own good. But once we stop to reflect on the fact that plants |
are not conscious and cannot engage in any intentional behaviour, |
it is clear that all this language is metaphorical; one might |
just as well say that a river is pursuing its own good and striving |
to reach the sea, or Jhat the' good' of a guided missile is to blow |
itself up along with its target. It is misleading of Schweitzer to |
attempt to sway us towards an ethic of reverence for all life |
by referring to 'yearning', 'exaltation', 'pleasure', and 'terror'. |
Plants experience none of these. |
Moreover, in the case of plants, rivers, and guided missiles, |
it is possible to give a purely physical explanation of what is |
happening; and in the absence of consciousness, there is no |
good reason why we should have greater respect for the physical |
processes that govern the growth and decay of living things than |
we have for those that govern non-living things. This being so, |
279 |
Practical Ethics |
it is at least not obvious why we should have greater reverence |
for a tree than for a stalactite, or for a Single-celled organism |
than for a mountain. |
DEEP ECOLOGY |
More than forty years ago the American ecologist AIdo Leopold |
wrote that there was a need for a 'new ethic', an 'ethic dealing |
with man's relation to land and to the animals and plants which |
grow upon it'. His proposed 'land ethic' would enlarge 'the |
boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, |
and animals, or collectively, the land'. The rise of ecological |
concern in the early 1970s led to a revival of interest in this |
attitude. The Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess wrote a brief |
but influential article distinguishing between 'shallow' and |
'deep' strands in the ecological movement. Shallow ecological |
thinking was limited to the traditional moral framework; those |
who thought in this way were anxious to avoid pollution to |
our water supply so that we could have safe water to drink, |
and they sought to preserve wilderness so that people could |
continue to enjoy walking through it. Deep ecologists, on the |
other hand, wanted to preserve the integrity of the biosphere |
for its own sake, irrespective of the possible benefits to humans |
that might flow from so doing. Subsequently several other writers |
have attempted to develop some form of 'deep' environmental |
theory. |
Where the reverence for life ethic emphasises individual living |
organisms, proposals for deep ecology ethics tend to take something |
larger as the object of value: species, ecological systems, |
even the biosphere as a whole. Leopold summed up the basis |
of his new land ethic thus: 'A thing is right when it tends to |
preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. |
It is wrong when it tends otherwise: In a paper published |
in 1984, Arne Naess and George Sessions, an American |
philosopher involved in the deep ecology movement, set out |
280 |
The Environment |
several principles for a deep ecological ethic, beginning with the |
following: |
The well-being and flourishing of human and non-human Life |
on Earth have value in themselves (synonyms: intrinsic value, |
inherent value). These values are independent of the usefulness |
of the non-human world for human purposes. |
2 Richness and diversity oflife forms contribute to the realisation |
of these values and are also values in themselves. |
3 Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity |
except to satisfy vital needs. |
Although these principles refer only to life, in the same paper |
Naess and Sessions say that deep ecology uses the term 'biosphere' |
in a more comprehensive way, to refer also to nonliving |
things such as rivers (watersheds), landscapes, and |
ecosystems. Two Australians working at the deep end of environmental |
ethics, Richard Sylvan and Val Plumwood, also |
extend their ethic beyond living things, including in it an obligation |
'not to jeopardise the well-being of natural objects or |
systems without good reason'. |
In the previous section I quoted Paul Taylor's remark to the |
effect that we should be ready not merely to respect every living |
thing, but to place the same value on the life of every living |
thing as we place on our own. This is a common theme among |
deep ecologists, often extended beyond living things. In Deep |
Ecology Bill Devall and George Sessions defend a form of 'biocentric |
egalitarianism': |
The intuition of biocentric equality is that all things in the biosphere |
have an equal right to live and blossom and to reach their |
own individual forms of unfolding and self-realisation within the |
larger Self-realisation. This basic intuition is that all organisms |
and entities in the ecosphere, as parts of the interrelated whole, |
are equal in intrinsic worth. |
If, as this quotation appears to suggest. this biocentric equality |
rests on a 'basic intuition', it is up against some strong intuitions |
that point in the opposite direction - for example, the intuition |
281 |
Practical Ethics |
that the rights to 'live and blossom' of normal adult humans |
ought to be preferred over those of yeasts, and the rights of |
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